Making an Effort
by thisisforyou
Summary: Angels are basically sexless unless they really want to make an effort. Aziraphale has only wanted to make an effort once in history, and he had stopped it because the other man reminded him too much of Crowley. Six weeks after the world didn't end, an angel and a demon meet for tea and start to negotiate the rest of eternity in the New World.


**A/N: **Fair warnings: this story involves a throwaway spoiler for the musical _Into the Woods, _and someone's hand very intentionally on someone else's throat in a sexual context. The hand doesn't choke anyone or anything, but if hands on throats is a sensitive subject for you there is a bit of that going on.

* * *

Two tables away from them, an illegal arms deal was occurring that violated precisely four international treaties.

Aziraphale sipped his Earl Grey and tried not to think about it. It wasn't his job to get involved anymore, and even if it had been, he could just _picture _the look on his companion's face if he did. They probably ought to stop meeting in places like this, but he had grown quite attached to the pastries.

Across the table from him, Crowley dropped a third cube of sugar into his tea and stirred it, making sure to clatter the spoon obnoxiously against the edges of the Royal Dalton crockery and cause the wait staff to frown at him. "Still nothing?" he asked once he was satisfied, sucking the spoon into his mouth with an unnecessarily loud noise.

"Still nothing," Aziraphale confirmed, trying to look mildly embarrassed by the display and failing. They'd been coming here for years, after all, and the staff knew what to expect from them. He could see one of them shaking her head fondly out of the corner of his eye.

The end of the world had been six weeks ago, and it seemed that Agnes Nutter's last prophecy had seen them right. For the first time in six thousand years Aziraphale hadn't had so much as the prickling feeling of being watched since he had emerged from Hell wearing Crowley's face. After the pressure of the last eleven years it was unbelievably liberating.

"No, me neither," Crowley agreed, slurping his tea. "Looks like we really scared them."

Aziraphale remembered the look that Michael and Beelzebub had shared when he stood half-naked and dripping with Holy Water in the courtroom of the underworld. "I think we did," he agreed. His eyes drifted back to the arms dealers across the room, and he forced himself to keep them on Crowley.

"So what now?" Aziraphale asked finally. They had agreed to steer clear of each other for a few weeks to check that the coast was clear, and so he had spent most of the last six weeks alone in the restored bookshop, poring over the first edition Biggles and Famous Fives that had appeared on their return from Tadfield. Knowing that Upstairs wasn't watching him was freeing, but it had also been unexpectedly lonely. He had _missed _Crowley, terrible tea-drinking manners notwithstanding.

Not that missing Crowley when he wasn't there was a new thing for Aziraphale. He'd had a lot of time over the last six weeks to think about that.

"I sold four books last week," he lamented. "I didn't know what else to do with myself."

_"Heaven forfend," _Crowley mocked him in an affectation of a soft Scotch lilt. "All new additions, I expect? Young adult fiction not really your thing?"

He shrugged. "No, actually," he said. "I wasn't sure what the etiquette is for selling accidental gifts from the Antichrist."

The demon laughed unexpectedly, a high, clear sound that made a woman at the next table look around. Crowley gave her an irritated glance before turning his attention back to Aziraphale. Women often turned to look at Crowley when they were out together; it would bother him more if his friend ever acknowledged them. He'd never seen him so much as blink at a human the way they always seemed to look at him.

Crowley leaned close across the table. "Everything's changed, angel," he said softly, in answer to the original question. His hand twitched against his saucer and for a wild moment Aziraphale thought he might reach across and take his own hand, but the thought was ridiculous and the hand did not move. "It'll take time to get used to how things are now, but we'll find a new purpose." Aziraphale smiled weakly. "Maybe we should get out of London for a while," Crowley continued brightly. "Change of scenery."

"And go where?" Aziraphale asked sceptically.

"Wherever we want," the demon responded, getting more animated by the second. "Big wide universe. I don't know about you, but I've hardly seen any of it since the Industrial Revolution. We could go to Tokyo, or New York, or Dubai -"

Far too late, something clicked in Aziraphale's brain. _"We?" _he repeated dumbly.

"Oh, come _on, _angel," Crowley growled, dropping his spoon back into the saucer with a clatter that made yet more people look around. "I thought we were past this. Yes, _we. _You're my best friend, the whole point of keeping this sorry planet around was because I didn't want to spend the rest of eternity without you. Sort of defeats the purpose if you go swanning off to Tokyo without me."

Aziraphale gaped at him, painfully aware of their new audience and the ringing of his own ears. _"Crowley," _he breathed, struggling to remember any other words. He knew the demon was fond of him - even the phrase _best friend _had been said before, in fact - but he hadn't expected such an outright declaration.

And yet... _none _of what he had said was exactly new information. It had always been there in the back of both of their minds, they'd just never said it aloud until the very end, when he had been too frightened and overwhelmed by the impending Armageddon to do anything but deny it.

There was no point in denying it now - Crowley had been his best friend for centuries. He was the person he wanted around when anything happened, the person he wanted to talk to at the end of the day over a bottle of wine. Eternity without him would be almost as bad as eternity in Heaven after the Great War, watching _The Sound of Music _on repeat with Gabriel humming along badly to the musical numbers. "You're right," he said finally, meeting the demon's eyes and nodding. "Of course you're right. I'm sorry, my dear."

Crowley shrugged, a tentative smile playing across his lips. "Like I said," he said softly. "It'll take a while to get used to this new world."

He picked up the teapot and refreshed both their cups as though that was the matter closed. Gradually, the rest of the British Museum cafe turned back to their own lives. One of the arms dealers across from them placed a briefcase on the table.

Aziraphale tried to ignore them. For centuries he'd fought the way the demon made him feel, the _longing_, the desperate pull in his chest. He'd pushed down anything more than the convenience of the Arrangement in fear of consequences from Upstairs. Now that there was no Upstairs, no consequences...

He had thought, for an overwhelming moment in the bandstand before the end of everything, that perhaps the demon had felt the same, that when he said they could _go off together_ he had meant hand in hand, to lie on a beach somewhere on Alpha Centauri and wrap themselves in each other until they forgot the world they had left behind. The idea had made him so dizzy that he had had to lean against the railing behind him in case his knees gave way. But he had been so frightened - of Armageddon, of the Great War, of finding Crowley the way he had dreamed of for so long only to lose him completely - that he hadn't been able to do anything but push him further away.

Angels were not inherently romantic creatures, but the more time he had spent on Earth the less he had felt like an angel.

Somewhere in the room, a chair clattered over; Aziraphale looked up in time to see one of the arms dealers dashing for the bathroom, one hand clutching his stomach. He looked at Crowley in surprise, but the demon just sipped his tea innocently. "Food poisoning, perhaps," he commented. "Not from this place, of course."

Aziraphale blinked. "Of course," he agreed. His chest did a familiar sort of somersault. Had Crowley been watching the arms dealers as well, and decided to do a good thing and stop them on his own? Or had he done it because he'd noticed how uncomfortable it was making Aziraphale?

Crowley threw back the last of the Earl Grey and made a satisfied sound. "Lift back?"

The Bentley was parked in a disabled spot out front; Aziraphale chose not to comment on this in the spirit of their new friendship. He put Chopin in the cassette player and tried not to roll his eyes when Freddie Mercury echoed insistently through the car instead. "You love it," the demon insisted at the look on his face.

They drove across London in a contented quiet, occasionally commenting on how much better the M25 seemed to have become and how remarkable it was that in one fell swoop of deciding he _didn't want to get involved _Adam Young seemed to have solved a surprising number of problems in a city he'd never visited. Instead of ending, the whole world had become just a little brighter overnight.

Crowley insisted the whole thing made him feel faintly sick, but looking across at him while bracing himself against the dashboard for dear life Aziraphale could tell he was just a little bit pleased.

"Drink?" he asked casually once the Bentley pulled into its usual parking space outside the shop.

Crowley was already halfway out of the car. "Way ahead of you, angel," he said unnecessarily.

He looked around in surprise as he stepped through the door. "You tidied," he commented.

Aziraphale bristled. "You don't need to sound so surprised," he sniffed. "I told you, I got bored." He locked the door behind them and hung the key carefully on its hook.

"You weren't joking," the redhead said idly. "I don't think the place was this tidy when you opened." His expression turned momentarily concerned as he looked at Aziraphale, almost as if he were worried about him, but he said nothing.

"Yes, well," Aziraphale cleared his throat irritably. "Red or white?"

Crowley arched an eyebrow. "Red," he answered. He didn't add _obviously _onto the sentence, but it hung in the air between them anyway.

The cold of the back room was a welcome distraction; once he was alone, Aziraphale took a moment to lean against the door and breathe. He wasn't sure it was a good idea, drinking the amount that they were used to when the air between them was so thick with words unsaid, boundaries unlaid. But what would it say if he chose not to drink now? _It's still early days_, he reasoned to himself. They kept saying it would take time.

"_Into the Woods,_" the demon commented when he returned, pointing at the souvenir programme from the musical's premiere with the hand that wasn't accepting the wineglass he was offered. "You framed that?"

Aziraphale felt himself flush slightly, the momentary calm from the back room fading. "I didn't," he defended. "It was like that when I came back. I suppose Adam must have liked it."

_Or known what it meant to me_, he thought to himself, not looking at his friend.

Usually the things that they asked each other to do under the Arrangement were relatively low-level in either direction; minor temptations or corruptions that set Aziraphale's teeth on edge but that were worth sacrificing for a week of being left alone in his bookshop while Crowley returned the favour. He had assumed that bribing a minor official on the Ukrainian power board in 1985 would be much the same, and it hadn't become apparent until the following year how wrong he had been.

Aziraphale hadn't left the shop for months after that, locked himself inside with his books and buried himself in other people's imaginations. Crowley had left ansaphone messages and written letters and left gift hampers of wine and cakes outside his door proclaiming that he hadn't _known _the bribe would ultimately lead to the biggest nuclear disaster in history, that Chernobyl had been waiting to go for _years_, that the chain of events in human history was so complex he couldn't know that that one bribe had been the deciding factor. None of it had mattered.

Almost a year later, two tickets to the premiere of Sondheim's new musical in San Diego had been slipped through his letterbox in an envelope labelled _I'm sorry_. The fact that the demon had remembered a throwaway comment about _Sweeney Todd _nearly ten years previously had caused a reluctant twinge in Aziraphale's chest.

Two tickets. It had all been deliberate, of course - Crowley knew he didn't have any other friends.

They had travelled to San Diego together; the demon had seemed genuinely upset by what had happened and had suggested some amendments to the Arrangement to protect them both in future and by the time they had arrived at the theatre the twinge in his chest had intensified right back to the ache that it had been before.

_Into the Woods _had lived up to its promise. Even Crowley had seemed to enjoy it, allowing Aziraphale to relax into the story without fear of being teased right up until the final number. When the baby had started to cry while the grieving Baker panicked, he had felt his throat close slightly, tears welling behind his eyes.

_Sometimes people leave you  
__Halfway through the wood  
__Do not let it grieve you  
N__o-one leaves for good_

He swallowed the tears with great difficulty in case Crowley was watching. No doubt the demon would never let him hear the end of it, but the idea of being suddenly left abruptly and completely alone on earth struck a horrible chord within him.

It was times like this he almost wished the two of them were human, wished the biggest thing stopping him from reaching over and taking the demon's hand was the fear of how the other man would react.

_You are not alone  
__No-one is alone_

He had looked over at Crowley and stifled a startled noise at the sight of a tear rolling down the demon's cheekbone.

He'd looked away before his friend could catch him staring and never mentioned that he had seen it, but afterwards Crowley had bought him a souvenir programme and he had kept it in a place of prominence, to remind himself that the demon was, on the inside, just a little bit human.

If the books of prophecy in the London Blitz hadn't made his mind up, the tears at the Sondheim premiere certainly had. He was completely and utterly in love with Crowley, and the deeper they had got into the Arrangement, the deeper he had waded into the quagmire of it all. By 1987 it was already too late.

Crowley sprawled across the sofa, already forgetting the programme he had been staring at so intently. Aziraphale considered him for a moment, daring himself to sit beside him; the redhead always sat with his arm across the back of the seat, practically inviting someone to lean into him.

After a moment of dithering, Aziraphale went to sit in his desk chair on the other side of the room, like he always had Before, cursing his own cowardice.

"So," Crowley said when the second bottle of wine was open and poured. "Any thoughts on getting out of London?"

Aziraphale hummed thoughtfully, feeling the warm fuzz of the alcohol washing over him; it didn't matter so much where they went, now he knew they would be together. "They'll have sushi in Tokyo," he mused cheerfully.

The demon snorted. "I should think so," he agreed.

He looked around the shop for a moment, swilling his wine around in his glass, feeling the fondness for his surroundings fill him. "We don't have to go straight away, though, do we?" he asked, looking shyly at the other man. "We have time."

Crowley smiled at him, tucking one foot underneath himself on the sofa. "Yes, angel," he said softly. "We have time."

He'd never minded Crowley calling him 'angel' before, despite what it often made humans think about them. He had been only mildly embarrassed to see a light switch on behind Anathema's dark eyes when they had dropped her at the cottage and the demon had called at him to _get in, angel_. He knew it wasn't meant like that - it was fun to pretend, sometimes, but it was simply a statement of fact, a reminder of what they both were, what they _had _to be, to each other. _Hereditary enemies, _they had said.

But now?

"Don't call me that," Aziraphale said in a small voice.

Crowley looked over at him in surprise; he couldn't help curling in on himself slightly in the armchair, waiting for the incredulous mockery. "What, 'angel'?" he asked.

Aziraphale nodded, not meeting the demon's eyes. "I... I just don't really feel like I am one, anymore." Crowley opened his mouth, either to disagree or say something scathing, so Aziraphale cut him off before he could get the words out. "And I'm not particularly upset about that."

Crowley thought about that for a moment. "I suppose not," he said pensively, scratching his chin. "I suppose both of us are something different now. Something new."

It was a nice idea; he had always felt closer to his friend than to other angels anyway. He reached out and re-filled his wineglass from one of the bottles on the table; when Crowley idly stretched his own glass over the table he tipped the last of the bottle into it without comment.

"Thanks, cupcake," the taller man said casually.

Aziraphale flushed scarlet and fumbled with the empty bottle, knocking over another in the process of putting it down. Crowley met the glare that was levelled at him with a wry smile, one eyebrow arching skywards innocently. "Just trying it out."

"I think I preferred 'angel'," Aziraphale grumbled.

It wasn't until his glass was nearly empty again that he realised: if his friend felt he should replace 'angel' with 'cupcake'...

Maybe it _had _been meant like that. A glimmer of hope began to spark deep down in his chest; the thought put a rather goofy grin onto his face. This was not lost on his friend, who waved his glass rather carelessly in his direction with a sigh of, "what _now_?"

Aziraphale straightened his face carefully. "Nothing," he said. "Pumpkin."

Crowley rolled his yellow eyes impatiently, but he was smiling.

"...I saw an amateur production of _Lysistrata _last week, do you remember when we saw that in Greece? It's simply _extraordinary_, millennia after it was written. Do you remember Aristophanes? He took us out for a drink afterwards, I'm sure he'd have been very pleased with it."

Aziraphale looked up in the middle of his sentence a good while later to find the demon adjusting himself on the sofa, clearly not listening, pulling irritably at the crotch of his too-tight trousers. He raised an eyebrow. "Comfortable?" he asked delicately.

Crowley shrugged defensively. "I am now."

He rolled his eyes. The human bodies they inhabited were not without discomfort, particularly around _that _area. Particularly if the demon insisted on such tight clothing. Still, it was a little indiscreet of him to attend to it on Aziraphale's sofa, although discretion wasn't exactly a quality the redhead was known for. And if the other man was even nearly as drunk as he was, then he could hardly be expected to observe human manners.

When he met his eyes, Crowley had fixed him with an interested stare, his head tilted to one side like a curious puppy. "I don't suppose you'd understand. Do you even _have... _those bits?" he asked without preamble.

"Of course I do," Aziraphale huffed, trying not to look as embarrassed as he felt by the topic of conversation. Maybe he should have just let the demon sort himself out in peace. "This body is human. Had to keep up appearances, you know."

As soon as the words left his mouth he knew they had been a mistake; Crowley leaned forwards in his seat with one eyebrow arched skywards. _"Keep up appearances?" _he repeated incredulously, his words slurring together slightly. "For whom? Who in the course of history did you think was going to see you naked?"

He felt colour rising to his cheeks, another inconvenient human reaction. "I don't _know_," he defended himself. They were getting uncomfortably close now to things Aziraphale had been avoiding discussing for decades, and he very much regretted getting them started. "It might have been necessary. It wasn't my decision, I was just told what the body would look like and how to use it."

There was a silence so heavy he could almost taste it. "Who told you how to use it?" the demon asked, his voice suddenly lowered to a soft, almost dangerous rumble.

Aziraphale's heart thumped painfully. "A few of the Archangels."

_"These," Gabriel had said, waving them about a bit, "are called 'genitals'. You probably won't need to use them, and you won't even notice they're there unless you want to. If for any reason you want to make the effort, you can just -"_

Crowley's look of horrified revulsion was worth the memory. "And as you can imagine, that about put me off using them for 6,000 years," he finished mildly.

"Sure," the demon agreed, licking his lips like there was a bad taste in his mouth and washing it away with more wine. "We were told more or less the same thing, without the practical demonstration. I think Downstairs sort of thought that as demons, we'd probably figure that part out on our own. I found anyway that the promise of... _using them_ was quite enough persuasion for humans."

Aziraphale nodded vaguely. "I think most of the others sort of experimented with them, in the early days," he mused. "It always felt too much like taking advantage for me. If you tell the human you're an angel sent from Heaven then of course they're going to do whatever you ask of them whether they want to or not. And if you don't tell them you're an angel, then they're agreeing based on a lie." His mind flashed back to the only time he'd ever _wanted _to use that particular aspect of his human body; the other person had called him _Mister Fell_ at the wrong moment and the whole thing had suddenly made him feel dirty.

"I kissed someone once," he admitted, staring off into the middle distance.

Crowley sat up so abruptly he nearly fell off the sofa. "What?" Aziraphale met his eyes, and he softened slightly in understanding. "1890," he guessed quietly.

He nodded. In the late 1800s he had liked to frequent a certain gentleman's club every so often; he had liked the atmosphere and the company, liked the way everyone had been just different enough not to notice that he himself was different. There had been a man there, tall and dark-haired and full of manic energy, with whom Aziraphale had become perhaps inappropriately close. They had learned to dance together, spent many an evening hanging back discussing food and theatre. Crowley had picked him up from the funeral years later without being asked, driven him home and helped him drink an inordinate amount of wine. Human funerals were familiar to both of them, but somehow his friend had known that this one was different.

They had shared one kiss in the back room of the club, and Aziraphale had stopped it once he had realised he could never share the whole truth of who he was with him. He'd decided it hadn't helped that the other man reminded him so much of Crowley. It didn't occur to him until years later that that may have been why he was interested in him in the first place.

"I hate him," the demon commented lightly, as though the comment could have been interpreted as anything other than jealousy.

There suddenly wasn't enough air in the room. Aziraphale struggled to catch his breath for a moment, to re-ground himself enough to work up the courage to say what was on his mind, but the redhead wouldn't stop _looking _at him like that and it was making it very difficult to think. But he had to say it. Had to say_ something_. They couldn't spend the rest of eternity not talking about it. "Would it help to know that I allowed it to get that far partially because he reminded me of you?" he asked, barely daring to breathe.

He could feel the yellow eyes on him from across the room, staring at him so intensely he felt he might burst into flame. "Yes," the demon breathed, leaning forward on the sofa, the last syllable elongating into a serpentine hiss. "Yes, it would." He suddenly felt very calm.

They were doing this, then.

Aziraphale took a deep breath, trying to counteract the way the wine was making his head spin. He felt as though he were standing right on the edge of a great cliff with nothing to tether him to reality, like every breath might move his centre of gravity enough to pitch him over the edge. Crowley watched unblinkingly as he slowly put his glass down on the desk. "I'm going to sober up," he said carefully.

"Yes, me too," the demon agreed, setting down his own glass without breaking eye contact.

They both grimaced as the alcohol left their bloodstreams. Once the blinding headache had ebbed and the taste of stale wine had faded from his mouth, Aziraphale shook his head to clear it and found that the bookshop did not move from underneath him. "Right," he said softly.

"Right," Crowley echoed. He was still fixing him with the same intense, slightly predatory stare, pinning him to the chair as though his very soul was under hungry scrutiny.

And then they were both moving, up out of their chairs, around the books littering the ancient carpet, closing the infinite distance between them until they were close enough for Crowley to get a hand in his lapel and drag them flush together, knocking the breath from Aziraphale's lungs as his hands buried themselves in the other man's hair. Their mouths found each other at last, hot and hungry and _desperate_, as though after all their millennia of waiting they could wait not one heartbeat more.

Crowley didn't kiss, he _consumed_, and Aziraphale gave himself up to it. He was distantly aware of the sound of books hitting the floor as he found himself slammed none-too-gently into a bookshelf, but for once the books were not his primary concern; one long-fingered hand was at his waist and the other was bunched in his shirt against his clavicle and it was the best he could do to hold on in return as the aching desire enveloped him.

All of human history for Aziraphale had been leading up to this moment: all the births and deaths and wars and weather, all pulling them both here, setting the scene for this. And every single second of it had been worth it.

They kissed forever, deep and searching, until Aziraphale's lips ached nearly as much as his chest. Crowley's tongue swept through him, making him whimper, and he pulled him closer by the nape of his neck as though if not for lack of effort they could morph into one being.

After an age of teasing movements, Aziraphale's shirt came free of his trousers and Crowley's fingers dipped inside to graze against the skin of his belly; he let out a soft sound as he felt his knees give way. He slipped a few inches down the wall, and Crowley, caught unawares by the movement, failed to catch him, the hand on his clavicle slipping until it rested on his throat.

Aziraphale moaned before either of them had quite realised what had happened. Crowley's eyes widened, his serpentine pupils expanding until they pushed the amber right to the edges of his irises. His fingers twitched and tightened ever so slightly, an involuntary, possessive movement that drew another shaky groan from deep in Aziraphale's chest. _"Oh,_" the demon breathed. "That's unexpected."

He swallowed, feeling the pressure of his friend's long fingers against his Adam's apple - not pressing hard enough to restrict his breathing, just resting there, freezing him in place. He felt as though his whole body were on fire, the sensation spreading right to the tips of his fingers still buried in the demon's hair. "Is it?" he asked with an unsteady chuckle. It seemed the most natural and obvious thing in the world to him.

Crowley bent to kiss him again, his lips curled into a devious smile, leaving his hand where it was. The kiss was softer this time, his urgency fading a little in the face of this new discovery, careful and sweet. Aziraphale tried to push up into it but found himself pinned by the demon's hands. The one at his waist had tugged more of his shirt free of his trousers and was stroking idle patterns against the skin of his belly, one long leg asserting itself between Aziraphale's own. He'd never been so aware of his human body, its every nerve awake, gooseflesh breaking out across his skin.

It wasn't the catch in his breathing from the pressure at his throat that was loosening his grip on reality; wasn't the idea that his friend might tighten his fingers and stop him from breathing entirely. It was the knowledge that he _wouldn't_, that he trusted the other man with every fibre of his being, that both of them were laying themselves entirely bare and vulnerable and he was completely at peace with the idea. None of it mattered, not Heaven or Hell or the Almighty herself. Aziraphale happily put his corporeal existence in Crowley's hands, and let go.

Though he didn't move an inch, Crowley seemed to sense the abandonment of control in him instinctively. A low growl started deep in the redhead's chest as he deepened the kiss once more, hooking one long finger into the waist of his trousers to pull their groins flush together and the undeniable proof that the demon was just as affected by this as he was made both of them gasp into each other's mouths. The hand at Aziraphale's throat crept upwards to take the nape of his neck and pull his head closer as though Crowley was trying to drink the breath straight from his lungs, then it descended again to tug the bowtie from his neck, to pry open his collar for better access for his fingers to splay out against his throat once more.

Fingers were closely followed by Crowley's burning lips, and lips were followed by teeth, nipping and scraping and _so gently _biting at the pale skin of his neck. Aziraphale busied himself tugging the jacket off his friend's narrow shoulders, pulling at the buttons on his shirt until he could reach bare skin. Crowley always felt as though his flesh was burning, as though his whole body was moments away from bursting into flame. Aziraphale shuddered at the thought of every inch of it pressed against him, setting him alight. When the demon's spare hand slid boldly up his inner thigh to press with clear intent against the heat between his legs, his knees began to tremble dangerously again.

"My dear," Aziraphale groaned breathlessly, pushing his hips up into the redhead's palm. "Might I suggest we do this somewhere more... _horizontal?" _

Crowley growled in response. He couldn't help but be pleased that he seemed to have reduced his friend to animal sounds instead of words. He rose to press their mouths together again, hot and hungry, and tugged Aziraphale forwards by his belt-loops, keeping their bodies flush until the back of Crowley' calves hit the edge of the sofa and he tumbled backwards, his shirt falling open, visibly straining against his too-tight trousers. Aziraphale shrugged his own shirt off his shoulders as Crowley planted both hands on his clothed buttocks and pulled him forwards enough to press his nose almost reverentially against his crotch.

A sound escaped his lips; Aziraphale slid his fingers into the auburn hair and reluctantly pulled the demon's head away from him, bending to press their lips together as he climbed onto the sofa to straddle him and grind his hips down. Crowley threw his head back against the sofa and _moaned_, loud and luxurious, his hands flying to Aziraphale's hips to hold them together. They rocked for a long moment, enjoying the slide of their groins together, until the demon reached between them to open Aziraphale's trousers and reach inside.

He gasped as his erection met the cool air of the bookshop, resting his forehead against Crowley's. The redhead pushed his body up until their lips met again, cradling him in his arms as he closed his fingers around his cock. _"Crowley," _Aziraphale keened.

"I'm here, Aziraphale," the demon responded against his lips. A strained hiss undercut his voice, as though he was struggling to keep his grasp on the present. Aziraphale could sympathise with that.

Crowley tugged irritably at his open trousers as they kissed. "Can I -"

"Please," he whispered, and the word had barely left his lips before the offending article of clothing was gone with a snap of the demon's dextrous fingers, and this was _better_, this was so much better, both of their trousers gone who-knew-where so that they were skin on skin, Aziraphale's hardness throbbing against the soft skin of Crowley's belly and an answering heat nudging with such delicious promise between his cheeks. He groaned into the redhead's mouth as those incredible fingers wrapped around him again, the forked tongue flickering through his mouth, completely surrounded by _Crowley_ until he couldn't think or breathe, only _feel. _

He felt it coming long before it did, the tension that had been building in his chest for six millennia coiling itself dangerously tight as though the slightest movement would snap it free. He writhed in Crowley's lap while the demon bit and licked at his neck, stinging and soothing in equal measure. The demon had always been the source of his emotions; all the joy in his life, all the pain, the grief, the exhilaration, every laugh and every tear had been caused by this being underneath him, watching him with those hypnotic yellow eyes and holding him as he began to fall apart.

The hand that wasn't keeping up a firm stroke on his cock seemed to be everywhere at once, in his hair, cupping his cheek, brushing tantalisingly against his nipples, gripping his hip to guide them together. Aziraphale braced himself on the demon's chest and tried to reach down to reciprocate, but the angle wasn't right and Crowley batted his hand away in favour of pressing their lips together again. He could feel the pressure building with every movement of their hips and hands, could feel his grip on himself slipping, and then his friend's teeth sank into the soft flesh of his throat and Aziraphale was falling.

It was like being drowned in Holy Water and burned in Hellfire all at once, the teeth in his neck the only thing keeping him in the bookshop. Crowley held him through it, shaking with the effort of self-control until Aziraphale's vision started to return to him, leaving his body weak and his fingers and toes tingling. The tip of the demon's nose grazed over the sensitive spots from his teeth as he raised his head. Their eyes met, his friend's amber irises lost in a sea of pupil, looking absolutely _wrecked. _"_Please_," he murmured, and that was just about enough for Aziraphale to pull himself together.

Crowley's shirt was still hanging off his shoulders, framing his pale chest like a work of art. Aziraphale slid his feet back onto the carpet and followed the path that it left, running his tongue down the demon's flat belly until he was knelt between his trembling thighs. His friend's fingers tangled in his hair as he bent his head with a blasphemous grin to take him into his mouth.

The sound that escaped Crowley's mouth was sinful; Aziraphale's own arousal stirred again as the fingers pulled sharply at his hair. _"Oh," _the demon moaned desperately, dropping his head back on the sofa once more. "Oh G- oh S- oh, _fuck, Aziraphale!" _

It didn't take long. He had barely started to enjoy the feeling of the demon's arousal on his tongue before the hand on his head was tugging sharply in warning and Crowley was following him over the precipice, a long, low hiss issuing from his mouth as his hips jerked helplessly.

Aziraphale licked his lips delicately when it was over, rising on unsteady legs to join his friend - lover? - on the sofa. Crowley immediately twisted to push him horizontal, trapping him in his arms and tucking against his body like a reptile on a heated rock.

They lay there for a long while, watching the shadows lengthen through the shop as the sun set outside. Then the demon shifted against him. "How long?" he asked quietly.

Aziraphale didn't need to ask what he meant. "I think I always knew we'd end up here," he said pensively, stroking his thumb up the demon's arm. It had taken a shockingly long time to understand the thrill that had hummed through his body even on the walls of Eden an eternity ago, but it had always been there, deep within him, as natural and secret a part of him as his wings.

Crowley lifted his head to look at him. "Well, thank you for letting me know," he replied tetchily. "There I was, spending half of eternity staring at you when you couldn't see me, thinking you'd never feel the way I did."

Aziraphale smiled at him. "I saw you," he confessed. "It just... wasn't the right time. Both of us would have been killed."

The demon grunted. "Having experienced this, I'm tempted to say it would have been worth it."

"Oh, stop," Aziraphale chuckled. "Just think - this way, we get to do it _again." _

Crowley hummed salaciously, trailing one long finger down Aziraphale's chest. Then he stretched as best he could whilst laid on the sofa. "There's a bed upstairs, right?"

"There is, my dear," he confirmed. "Though I don't think I've ever used it."

His friend laughed easily, levering himself upright. "Well, you're going to get some use out of it now," he promised.

Aziraphale accepted the hand he was offered to pull himself up, and followed Crowley upstairs, watching the swagger in his hips disturb the flesh of his buttocks pleasantly. There were so many things he wanted to do to that body that the thought of them all made his head spin and his corporeal body quiver with anticipation.

It was early days, after all. They had time.


End file.
